As I Lay Dying Essay

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As I Lay Dying is by the revered author William Faulkner. The novel was published in the year 1930, and it has 261 pages. William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He went to the University of Mississippi where he first started writing poems and short stories in the school’s newspaper. Despite dropping out of the college, Faulkner went on the write many praised works, including Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury. In 1949, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on July 6, 1962 in Byhalia, Mississippi. As I Lay Dying is the story of the Bundren family on their journey to bury their mother Addie. The story is told from the points of view of a total of fifteen different people, which…show more content…
Each section is like reading the mind of a character, a writing style called “stream of consciousness,” which gives the reader a glimpse into the heads of most of the novel’s characters. For example, the scene where the family is crossing the bridge and the coffin falls into the river is told through the perspectives of three different people; each section is unique although the same thing is happening. Also, some characters are looked at in a different way by other characters. While Addie claims Jewel is her favorite son and loves him the most, Cora thinks Darl is the best of the Bundren children and most worthy of Addie’s love because he appears to care more for Addie. Faulkner’s belief about human nature is that people see things differently and in the way that makes the most sense to them through their own personal observations. As was previously stated, the characteristics of Jewel and Darl change depending on who is talking about them. Likewise, Anse thinks his children are not good kids while other members of the community think that Anse is a bad father because of his extreme selfishness and laziness. Vardaman, the youngest of the Bundren children and unable to fully comprehend his mother’s death, compares Addie to the fish he had killed just before she

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